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Security is the condition of being protected against danger or loss. In the general sense, security is a concept similar to safety. The nuance between the two is an added emphasis on being protected from dangers that originate from outside. Individuals or actions that encroach upon the condition of protection are responsible for the breach of security.
The word "security" in general usage is synonymous with "safety," but as a technical term "security" means that something not only is secure but that it has been secured. In telecommunications, the term security has the following meanings:
Security has to be compared and contrasted with other related concepts: Safety, continuity, reliability. The key difference between security and reliability is that security must take into account the actions of active malicious agents attempting to cause destruction.
It is very often true that people's perception of security is not directly related to actual security. For example, a fear of flying is much more common than a fear of driving; however, driving is generally a much more dangerous form of transport.
Another side of this is a phenomenon called security theatre where ineffective security measures such as screening of airline passengers based on static databases are introduced with little real increase in security or even, according to the critics of one such measure - Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System - with an actual decrease in real security.
There is an immense literature on the analysis and categorisation of security. Part of the reason for this is that, in most security systems, the "weakest link in the chain" is the most important. The situation is asymmetric since the defender must cover all points of attack while the attacker can simply identify a single weak point upon which to concentrate their efforts.
Certain concepts recur throughout different fields of security.